Invitational Intervention: The ARISE Model for Engaging Reluctant Alcohol and Other Drug Abusers in Treatment

Families are an untapped resource in motivating resistant alcohol dependent and other drug addicted individuals to enter treatment. Contrary to popular belief, families maintain a disproportionately close connectedness with their addicted loved ones. In this article, the authors present the underlying functional components of this connectedness, and describe the process called Family Motivation to Change for mobilizing family and friends to form an Intervention Network for the express purpose of getting a resistant addicted loved one into treatment. This is the core of ARISE as A Relational Intervention Sequence for Engagement. ARISE uses an Invitational Intervention method, with the family conducting most of the Intervention, thus minimizing the clinician's expenditure of time and cost. (C) 2008 by The Haworth Press. All rights reserved.